Why does technology create new problems for each one it solves? | Mark Buchanan
Today, so-called techno-optimists fulfill the ranks of billionaires from Silicon Valley. They proclaim a brilliant future for humanity delivered by the rapid continuation of technological advances.
Of course, these techno-optimists are right to say that technology and science are undoubtedly among the greatest advantages of humanity and hope for the future. But they go too far, because it is also true that technology always creates new problems even if they solve others – it is also something that we have learned thanks to science. Consequently, the naive faith in technology is a recipe for making a short -term buzz several times while incurring long -term costs. The most of the technology requires a more cautious and balanced approach.
Why is technology going so often-even if that does a lot? Anthropologist Sander Van der Leeuwe sketched an answer ten years ago, and that seems to be something like a law of nature. When we face a problem, we think about it and build a conceptual model of how a part of the world works. We use it to offer a solution to our problem. Based on this understanding, we then act, and the technology that we often offer the problem. However, we then generally note that our model – of course – was not actually a complete model of the world. Our simple model has left some things next to it. Unsurprisingly, it turns out that our technology, operating in the real world, has effects on this world that we had not planned – unforeseen consequences.
We meet this model several times because the simple models are so powerful, attractive and useful. In addition, simple models leave details so that we always perceive the complete consequences of our actions. We invent better fishing technology to feed more people, then see that we have wiped out fish populations. We create wonderful non -stick surfaces for cooking pans, then discover later that the chemicals of these materials cause health problems and have leaned in the environment, spreading mainly everywhere. We manufacture super practically super plastics that are found in micro-particles in the oceans and in our own body. It is also the history of technology, as well as the big victories.
Because we understand this, anticipating problems should be part of the technological development itself. A clear vision of our ignorance does not mean not to continue technology, but advises prudence and wisdom using foresight, without expecting anything impeccable. This also means taking practical measures to regulate development and give time to repair emerging problems, while avoiding the worst possible results.
Our current approach to research and development in artificial or AI intelligence offers an example of the reckless approach. Currently, a handful of the largest technological companies in the world are fighting together to control the market of this technology, deploying one model after another as quickly as possible with little surveillance. As noted by neuroscientist Gary Marcus, this race for short -term domination has an obvious cost – it exposes everyone to the unknown risks of new and not tested technologies. It also has a less obvious cost: the emergency presented in competition means that practically all available resources are invested in research in the most promising, currently so-called large-language models. This moves away the resources of other fields of computer science which could ultimately prove to be more important to one day reach a real AI.
Fortunately, all the leaders of Silicon Valley do not accept techno-optimistic demand for uncontrolled technological acceleration. Dario Amodei, CEO of the Society of Ia Anthropic, certainly shares their optimism, as he revealed in a recent essay expressing his point of view according to which research on AI could lead to incredible improvements to human well-being. Exploring a certainly optimistic scenario, he suggests that we could in a few decades essentially eliminate all diseases, distribute the beneficial economic growth between nations, even considerably improve the collective capacity of humans to constitute a consensus on questions of fundamental social importance.
But Amodei also accepts that there is a lot of room for things to be mistaken – AI may not reach these positive points, and could rather radically exacerbate inequalities, or provide a new class of autocrats with unprecedented supervision and control powers thanks to propaganda improved by AI. What will happen depends on the choices we make.
And, in this, he suggests that keeping the risks and regulations closely must be the right way to follow, rather than running naively in the future with hope as a guide. People underestimate not only the quality of AI Bad risks could be. And there is a natural asymmetry that we must respect.
“The fundamental development of AI technology and many (not all) of its advantages seem inevitable”, as he sees, following powerful market forces. “On the other hand, the risks are not predetermined and our actions can considerably change their probability.”
As often with cultures such as Wall Street or Silicon Valley, the essential tension is between forces in search of short -term benefits – whatever the long -term result – and others that prefer to balance opportunities and risks, and thus pursue more sustainable advantages. In arguments for and against such opposite opinions, there is a natural imbalance, because the seductive and obvious potential profits are now weighed against harsh risks to see and less defined in an unknown future. It is not a fair comparison.
Especially when it is so easy to make catastrophically enormous mistakes when you think in the future, even in the near future. In his techno-optimistic manifesto, the entrepreneur Marc Andreessen expresses his dream with casualness that we could accelerate clean energy resources so quickly that everyone on earth could soon use 1000 times more energy per day than what is currently typical for people in developed countries. Just think about what people could achieve! It looks great. Except that a little thought in physics also shows that the use of so much energy would immediately cause global warming about 30 times faster than we live today, and we would all be died in a few years. Not so great after all.
Of course, anyone could make this kind of error, because in our complex world, the cause and the effect are complex. The technology is delicate and what could happen is far from obvious. It’s like that – and why we have to think more carefully about the risks and follow a more cautious approach.
